Prayers for the Dying

"Form is Empty, Empty is Form" Detail (2009)

Of life's Spring

may we drink deep

and awake to dream

and die to sleep

and dreaming

weave another form

a shining thread

of life reborn

~~Starhawk
"The Weaver Song" from the Spiral Dance

I posted this earlier, and then felt a bit too "exposed", so I withdrew it.  But I feel that was not really right, and so I'm posting it again, and offer again my gratitude to the people who so kindly offered comments at the time.

In early 2009 I did a series of works dedicated to my brother I called "Prayers for the Dying".  I've been wanting to write about my brother again, and don't really know how to do it. I wish I could give him, and others like him, a voice.

Maybe the reason to write about this story is to demonstrate how very important it is to re-examine our understanding of death.  All the research and  interest in NDE's (near death experiences), mediums,  Michael Newton's "Life Between Life" work, even TV shows like "Ghost Hunters" contribute to changing attitudes to what death is,  and hence, to what life is as well.
 

In 2008, Glenn had a brain stem stroke, and since then has as been in a  persistent vegetative state, which means that he is fed by tubes, breathes  by tubes, and cannot respond to others in any recognizable way.  His doctors have told me that there was no brain activity, and no hope of recovery.  Glenn did not have a living will.  Because my mother  has traditional ideas about  "god's will", I can't remove life support.  The only other surviving member of my family is a brother who agrees with my mother.   Glenn lingers in a vegetative state, and I am unable legally to assist my brother to pass.  I know I step into an ethical hornet's nest when I say this. 

One of the ways I've dealt with this has been assisting a number of charities that work with children in Glenn's name, something he would appreciate.


The last decade of Glenn's life, he became  depressed, and isolated.  He was a gun collector, and after his stroke, I  took half of his collection and sold them, donating the money to a charity for children as a way of transforming the negative energy that the guns represent.   The rest, at my other brother's insistence, were locked  in a closet, and he kept the key (the house is retained for his and my mother's use). 

This past spring they weren't in town, and I did an "energy cleansing" with my friend and while "sageing"  I noticed that the closet door was cracked open.  I'd never seen it open before, since my other brother was adamant that I "leave Glenn's things alone".    I looked inside, saw some guns and other memorabilia.  I  did not remove anything, and shut the door, which locked and I can't, of course,  open it again.

In retrospect,  think that closet opened because Glenn wanted me to take the contents and turn them into charity, as I did before.  I wish I had.  My friend noticed the phenomenon as well. 

"The Heart Sutra" (2009)

One of the reasons we did the "cleansing" was there have been many such experiences  in that house, and I've never been comfortable having to stay there.

One of the most striking was last winter.   I was alone in the house, reading,  when suddenly I heard a bell, kind of like a Tibetan brass bell, right beside my ear!  I was so startled I got up and walked around, trying to find out where the bell  was,  but no luck.  Within an hour of that strange occurrence, a friend called, inviting me to go to a talk given by a local energy healer.   Which is how I met Kate,  who works as a medium here in Tucson.

I arranged for a meeting, and we met in a quiet cafe, where Kate informed me that Glenn was with us (!) -  and then told me things about him that seemed  accurate.   She said that Glenn, and others like him, are often out of the body, and she encouraged me to go talk to him at his bedside, and tell him he can let go. Last summer I went away for a while, and when I returned  I saw Kate again.  She told me  Glenn had "crossed over".  I don't know what that means, as he remains physically in a vegetative state.  But I remember the bell - and the encounter with the medium certainly gave me comfort.

 

I don't see spirits, although I pay careful attention to synchronicities in my life.  I don't know what to make of this, but it's given me a better capacity to deal with the situation.  I hope what Kate said is true, but I can't really know.

Meanwhile, I pray to Tara, Goddess of Compassion, for my brother, Glenn, and I'm going to sponsor another child for him.  I know he would be pleased.  

"Transformation Reliquary" (2009)

 

 

Liminal

What we hate in ourselves is what we cannot know in ourselves 

 but what is true to the pattern does not need to be explained. 

Inside everyone is a great shout of joy 

waiting to be born 

David Whyte

I have always thought of November, and a certain time of year somewhere in March or early April (depending on where you live) as "liminal times", transitions in the year cycle that are "limons", spaces between winter and spring that are infused with a kind of transformational energy, with "becoming". With "not-yet" and "none-such", immanent with the possibility, the inevitability of change, but not-yet. At these liminal points, it seems all kinds of intersections of dimensions occur, the "veils" between this and that are not so clear, not so "in-formed". The winter snow isn't quite here yet but it's imminent. The World is dying. There is no spring yet, but a trickle of water is heard, the first fragile melt; you feel that deep subterranean humming, the invisible thrust of new life just under your feet. The World is being born. Liminal zones. Borders, edges, cracks in the veneer that offer transformation.

"Dream Weaver"

Sometimes, life really is too much. When that happens you rage, cry, lose friends because you've become dark and bitter and complaining, you don't like yourself, all your ideas of what and who you were and think you are and should be doing blow up and make no sense. Horse Latitudes. When all of that happens, there is nothing left to do except open the heart, by whatever means, and turn to spirit for support, by whatever name. You have to contact that greater life, or you will sink. There is nowhere else to go. I'm not making sense. At this moment, I'm in an airport of souls, changing planes, a waiting room. A liminal zone, where, among other things, things stop making sense. You can be, in a liminal zone, in form-lessness, somewhere between memory and creative potential. Between death and birth, between "Fall"(ing) and "Spring"(ing). I made a series of sculptures in 2009 for my brother I called "Prayers for the Dying", which I show here. I had casts of hands, and stamps with words and letters on them............and it occurred to me that words are what we use to shape our ideas of who and what we are.** Words are also what we use to make blessings, and blessings, even if we don't know what we're doing and even if we don't even believe in it, blessings, like my poem in the previous entry, are winds that fill our sails when we find ourselves marooned in the "horse latitudes". Even when we are saying goodbye.

Perhaps dying is to release form, and the breaking of "word shapes" could represent the breaking of all the ideas we encase our identity in..............the helping hands and the light assist in that process of reaching for a greater being. In the work at the top of this post ("The Heart Sutra") what lies between the child's hand and the aged hand, with it's many layered, written tablet.........is the Heart.

"Form is Empty, Empty is Form"

"Holy Mother Take My Hand"

I don't know where I'm going with this blog entry, but I feel it's so important, especially now, to understand our multi-dimensional being. Perhaps, in learning to not fear death, we can also learn how to more fully live.

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**This reminds me of a wonderful interview with visionary artist David Jeffers I did in 2001, about working with the Goddess Lilith:

"What you believe" is just a shell. (The Goddess) Lilith is about breaking the shell. Sometimes you have to fall apart to be put back together, because that's the only way to be re-integrated. You cannot veneer Lilith’s teachings on top of who you think you are. She’ll change you first.”